Looking Up: Seeing the men in the moon

Peter Becker

Friday

Sep 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMSep 30, 2011 at 6:23 AM

I thought I’d seen everything - of course I haven’t, but that’s what people say. Seeing the man in the moon is nothing unusual, and in fact is an observation made by probably everyone with eyes to see since mankind first looked up. What a surprise to find another man in the moon!

I thought I’d seen everything - of course I haven’t, but that’s what people say. Seeing the man in the moon is nothing unusual, and in fact is an observation made by probably everyone with eyes to see since mankind first looked up. What a surprise to find another man in the moon!

Of course there were 10 “men on the moon” who left their boot prints on the lunar soil back in the Apollo days - which ended nearly 39 years ago. This wasn’t anything to do with them. Hopefully someday we will see “manned” lunar missons again. Maybe there will be women on the moon as well?

One night, the backyard telescope was trained on the waning gibbous moon - three days past the full phase. The moon stood boldly in the east, its circular basketball shape of the Wednesday before now squeezed into more of a football. The waning phases - after full moon - are sadly under-appreciated. This is because one has wait up late to see the moon (or rise very early)!

It is a shame, because at every stage the changing aspect of sunlight on the moon reveals its own cascade of shadows on the craters and mountains, giving new vistas of lunar relief. The shadows are along the terminator, the dividing line between sunlight and darkness, where on the moon you would be seeing either sunset or sunrise. The moon has no twilight, since there is no appreciable atmosphere. The Earth therefore lacks a harsh terminator, given our blanket of air providing a gradual dusk and dawn.

Back to this second man in the moon. Through the telescope, a chance mixture of darker and lighter lunar surface gave rise to an impression of a man’s face, at least to me. It was seen in the middle of one of the moon’s “seas” - the maria, wide expanses of hardened lava which have covered over craters eons ago, and few new craters have since occurred to break up the lava bed. The maria are best seen away from the terminator, in full sunlight. Full moon shows them most pronounced, but even when the moon is gibbous or near quarter phase, you have good views of the maria on the brighter portion.

As mentioned, the dark maria are not uniform, but have contrasting lighter and darker areas. With your imagination you can sometimes pick out shapes common to your earthly experience, much like we do whenever we sit back and pick out shapes in the puffy fair weather cumulus clouds. (What? You haven’t done that since childhood? There’s no time like the next nice day and you’re never too old. Enjoy the clouds again!)

This time, within the “Sea of Nectar” - the lunar maria have very interesting names- features of a face were imagined, with eyes, one eyebrow, nostrils, a mouth, cheeks and chin - but no hair (much like many on the Earth). I never noticed this before, but now it will be hard not to see it!

Very subjective, others may not have the same impression but will imagine other shapes.

You can imagine shapes scanning the stars as well. We do this every time we recognize the constellations and other star groups.

The Big Dipper’s seven stars outlines what really looks like a dipper, though of course in space the stars are at varying distances and three dimensionally, the shape disappears if there were any starship able to go around it. It would be interesting to travel far enough in space to see the Big Dipper in the same shape, but backward from behind - with the sun now visible as a dim star in its midst.

With a telescope or binoculars you can find many of your own star groupings- known as asterisms. They have no scientific value except in aiding the observer to recall regions of the sky and “star hop” from one field of view to the next., to locate some object, such as a galaxy plotted on your star atlas. They have another use as well - star asterisms and imagined shapes on the moon or other celestial scenes serve to inspire and fire our imaginations, keeping us in child-like awe. No matter our age or expertise, it takes more than cold figures and facts and theories to keep us going!

I must pause for a brief memorial. Two avid readers of this column, Joe and Rose Funke of Lake Como, Pa., passed away this year. They were very much an inspiration to me to keep writing Looking Up. Both senior citizens, Joe had the most amazing tale. He had an incredible career as an engineer for NASA during the Apollo program. He knew the astronauts personally who went to the moon.

Joe told me the story of how he put his name on the moon. While preparing for the launch of Apollo 11 in July 1969, he had access to the lunar module that would take the first men to the lunar surface. He slipped a piece of tape with his name written on it to a rung on the ladder. When Neil Armstrong returned from the moon, Joe asked him of he had seen his (Joe’s) name on the ladder as he climbed down. Joe related that the astronaut said he saw it.

They were both fascinating and friendly people, who will be missed.

The moon is currently sliding toward first-quarter moon, on Oct. 3. Full moon is on the 12th. This is a great time to explore the moon, whether by eyes alone, binoculars or any size telescope.

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